Browsing Quotes By Randy Pausch
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Some of the best caregiving advice we’ve ever heard comes from the flight attendants: “Put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.”
Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:59 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Every night at bedtime, when I ask Logan [the younger son] to tell me the best part of his day, he always answers: “Playing with Dylan.” When I ask him for the worst part of his day, ha also answers: “Playing with Dylan.” Suffice it to say, they’re bonded as brothers.
Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:58 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
We’ve placed a lot of emphasis in this country on the idea of people’s rights. That’s how it should be, but it makes no sense to talk about rights without also talking about responsibilities.
Rights have to come from somewhere, and they come from the community. In return, all of us have a responsibility to the community. Some people call this the “communitarian” movement, but I call it common sense.Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:57 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
My advice has always been: “You ought to be thrilled you got a job in the mailroom. And when you get there, here’s what you do: Be really great at sorting mail.”
No one wants to hear someone say: “I’m not good at sorting mail because the job is beneath me.” No job should be beneath us. And if you can’t (or won’t) sort mail, where is the proof that you can do anything?Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:57 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Apologies are not pass/fail. I always told my students: When giving an apology, any performance lower than an A really doesn’t cut it.
Halfhearted or insincere apologies are often worse than not apologizing at all because recipients find them insulting. If you’ve done something wrong in your dealings with another person, it’s as if there’s an infection in your relationship. A good apology is like an antibiotic; a bad apology is like rubbing salt in the wound.Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:56 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don’t worry about because I have a plan in place if they do.
Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:55 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.
Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:55 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
“If you wait long enough,” he said, “people will surprise and impress you.”
…Jon warned me that sometimes this took great patience – even years.Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:54 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Some old-school types complain these days that higher education too often feels like it is all about customer service. Students and their parents believe they are paying top dollar for a product, and so they want it to be valuable in a measurable way. It’s as if they’ve walked into a department store, and instead of buying five pairs of designer jeans, they’ve purchased a five-subject course load.
I don’t fully reject the customer-service model, but I think it’s important to use the right industry metaphor. It’s not retail. Instead, I’d compare college tuition to paying for a personal trainer at an athletic club. We professors play the roles of trainers, giving people access to the equipment (books, labs, our expertise) and after that, it is our job to be demanding. We need to make sure that our students are exerting themselves. We need to praise them when they deserve it and to tell them honestly when they have it in them to work harder.
Most importantly, we need to let them know how to judge for themselves how they’re coming along. The great thing about working in a gym is that if you put in effort, you get very obvious results. The same should be true of college. A professor’s job is to teach students how to see their minds growing in the same way they can see their muscles grow when they look in the mirror.Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:53 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.
Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:52 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
I did, however, do a lot of my winning out of view of my family. And I know that increased suspicions. But I found the best way to bag stuffed animals is without the pressure of a family audience. I also didn’t want anyone to know just how long it took me to be successful. Tenacity is a virtue, but it’s not always crucial for everyone to observe how hard you work at something.
Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:52 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The second kind of head fake is the really important one – the one that teaches people things they don’t realize they’re learning until well into the process. If you’re a head fake specialist, your hidden objective is to get them to learn something you want them to learn.
Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:51 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
There’s a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It’s not something you can give; it’s something they have to build. Coach Graham worked in a no-coddling zone. Self-esteem? He knew there was really only one way to teach kids how to develop it: You give them something they can’t do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process.
…I realize that, these days, a guy like Coach Graham might get thrown out of a youth sports league. He’d be too tough. Parents would complain.
…It saddens me that many kids today are so coddled.Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:51 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
When I was finally dismissed, one of the assistant coaches came over to reassure me. “Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn’t he?”
I could barely muster a “yeah.”
“That’s a good thing,” the assistant told me. “When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you.”Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:50 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
My mother, meanwhile, knew plenty, too. All my life, she saw it as part of her mission to keep my cockiness in check. I’m grateful for that now. Even these days, if someone asks her what I was like as a kid, she describes me as “alert, but not precocious.” We now live in an age when parents praise every child as a genius. And here’s my mother, figuring “alert” ought to suffice as a compliment.
When I was studying for my PhD, I took something called “the theory qualifier,” which I can now definitively say was the second worst thing in my life after chemotherapy. When I complained to my mother about how hard and awful the test was, she leaned over, patted me on the arm and said, “We know just how you feel, honey. And remember, when your father was your age, he was fighting the Germans.”
After I got my PhD, my mother took great relish in introducing me by saying: “This is my son. He’s a doctor, but not the kind who helps people.”Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:47 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
We now live in an age when parents praise every child as a genius. And here’s my mother, figuring “alert” ought to suffice as a compliment.
Speaker: Randy PauschPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 7:46 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment!